1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a substrate processing apparatus and a substrate processing method for cleaning substrates of various types (hereafter called “substrate”) such as semiconductor wafers, substrates for liquid crystal displays, substrates for plasma displays, substrates for FED (Field Emission Display), optical disc substrates, magnetic disc substrates, magnetic optical disc substrates and substrates for photo masks.
2. Description of the Related Art
Devices typified by semiconductors are growing more fined, higher performed and high precise, it becomes increasing difficult to remove fine contaminants such as foreign substances and particles adhering to a surface of a substrate without destroying patterns formed on the surface of the substrate. As a solution to this problem, following method is currently proposed. In this method, at first, a liquid film is formed on the substrate by applying liquid to the substrate. Next, the liquid film is frozen on the substrate so that the contaminants adhering to the substrate detach from the surface of the substrate. At last, the liquid film (frozen film) is removed from the substrate, thereby the contaminants is easily removed from the surface of the substrate. Following literatures exist as prior art documents: JP-A-11-31673; JP-A-3-503975; JP-A-3-261142; U.S. Pat. No. 6,783,599; and JP-A-62-169420.